4/30/2012
Reed Hollinshead
ITD Communication
208-334-8881
reed.hollinshead@itd.idaho.gov
Rock Patrol: a critical highway safety tool
BOISE: Rock Patrol - it's a critical, but often overlooked, aspect of ITD's goal to improve driver safety.
The question arises each spring - people wondering why they see Idaho Transportation Department trucks with snowplows still attached driving up and down bare roads. The answer is that it’s a maintenance man out performing patrols for falling rocks, a genuine hazard as temperatures change and moisture (from melting snow or spring rains) loosen up the soil holding them back - especially on mountainous highways.
“Some parts of our mountain roads have rocks fall on them virtually every morning and night,” explained Dan Bryant, southwest Idaho maintenance coordinator. “Sunrise, sunset, rain or wind can bring them down in significant numbers.”
Crews may still encounter snow at this time of year on some of the routes, and have the plow in place to deal with that if it happens. But the chief benefit of the plow is that it can be used to move rocks that are four or five feet in diameter, as well as the little ones that can take out an oil pan on a car or truck, or flatten a tire on a small car, motorcycle or bicycle.
Here's a picture of an ITD truck with plow mounted.
The point of doing rock patrols in plow trucks is not really about saving time, which does also happen because a truck with an attached plow can address snowfall or rockfall immediately, without having to go back to the shop to get a plow attached and return to the scene.
The primary benefit is that “we can get the rock off the highway before someone hits it and is injured or damages their vehicle,” explained Bryant.
Plow trucks are used primarily on stretches of highway that have a history of rockfall where the crews are confident they will encounter rocks again.